County encourages emergency alert sign-ups after siren failure

WASHINGTON — Washington County public safety agencies are encouraging residents to sign up for emergency alerts about severe weather and other emergencies.

The suggestion comes after a siren failure in Wellman on Friday, where tornadoes leveled several buildings west of town. Washington County Emergency Management Coordinator Marissa Reisen said it was “the worst place possible” for the county’s siren system to fail in light of Friday’s damage, but that crews were on-site fixing the siren Tuesday morning in preparation for more bad weather.

"(We) want to make sure people get signed up to receive alerts in the event something like that would happen again,“ she said.

Alert Iowa is a statewide emergency notification system the county uses to send alerts to residents. This system enables Washington County officials to communicate emergency information directly to citizens via call, text message, email and social media. The system also has the capability to translate messages into multiple languages.

To sign up, area residents can:

“Redundancy ensures your safety in the event of a failure of any other system,” a news release from the county said. ”Multiple means to receive messages is the best practice to keep yourself and your loved ones safe.“